Posted on 02/05/2014 4:26:38 AM PST by Kaslin
Philadelphia's public school system has joined several other big-city school systems, such as those in Atlanta, Detroit and Washington, D.C., in widespread teacher-led cheating on standardized academic achievement tests. So far, the city has fired three school principals, and The Wall Street Journal reports, "Nearly 140 teachers and administrators in Philadelphia public schools have been implicated in one of the nation's largest cheating scandals." (1/23/14) (http://tinyurl.com/q5makm3). Investigators found that teachers got together after tests to erase the students' incorrect answers and replace them with correct answers. In some cases, they went as far as to give or show students answers during the test.
Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, identifies the problem as district officials focusing too heavily on test scores to judge teacher performance, and they've converted low-performing schools to charters run by independent groups that typically hire nonunion teachers. But William Hite, superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia, said cheating by adults harms students because schools use test scores to determine which students need remedial help, saying, "There is no circumstance, no matter how pressured the cooker, that adults should be cheating students."
While there's widespread teacher test cheating to conceal education failure, most notably among black children, it's just the tip of the iceberg. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, published by the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics and sometimes referred to as the Nation's Report Card, measures student performance in the fourth and eighth grades. In 2013, 46 percent of Philadelphia eighth-graders scored below basic, and 35 percent scored basic. Below basic is a score meaning that a student is unable to demonstrate even partial mastery of knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at his grade level. Basic indicates only partial mastery. It's a similar story in reading, with 42 percent below basic and 41 percent basic. With this kind of performance, no one should be surprised that of the state of Pennsylvania's 27 most poorly performing schools on the SAT, 25 are in Philadelphia.
Philadelphia's four-year high-school graduation rate in 2012 was 64 percent, well below the national rate of 78 percent. Even if a student graduates from high school, what does it mean? What a high-school diploma means for white students is nothing to write home about, as suggested by the fact that every year, nearly 60 percent of first-year college students must take remedial courses in English or mathematics. What a high-school diploma means for black students is nothing less than a disaster, as pointed out by Drs. Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom in their 2009 book, "No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning." They state that "blacks nearing the end of their high school education perform a little worse than white eighth-graders in both reading and U.S. history, and a lot worse in math and geography." Little has changed since the book's publication.
Hite rightfully said that test cheating by adults harms students, but that harm pales in comparison with the harm done by teachers awarding fraudulent grades and conferring fraudulent high-school diplomas, particularly to black students. You say, "Williams, what do you mean by fraudulent diplomas?" When a student is given a high-school diploma, that attests that he can read, write and compute at a 12th-grade level, and when he can't do so at the eighth-grade level, that diploma is fraudulent. What makes it so tragic is that neither the student nor his parents are aware that he has a fraudulent diploma. When a black person is not admitted to college, flunks out of college, can't pass a civil service test or doesn't get job promotions, he is likelier to blame racial discrimination than his poor education.
Politicians, civil rights organizations and the education establishment will do nothing about the fraud. In fact, they give their full allegiance to the perpetrators.
Philadelphia...The City Of Brotherly Smudge.
Here in Atl, the teachers/administrators guilty of this were almost all of the black persuasion. That probably reflects who populates the government sinecures as much as it indicts any particula racial segment.
Did any of them go to jail over this?
No - that would be racist.
Did any of them go to jail over this?
They’re already in a place far worse than any jail.
“Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, identifies the problem as district officials focusing too heavily on test scores to judge teacher performance”
It sounds like the testing process was fairly effective at assessing “teacher” performance, given its unmasking of 140 cheating union goons. I presume only the most blatant and least politically-protected cheats were identified.
Golly, what do these cities have in common? Can't quite put my finger on it. (S)
Yes, there is a "Common Core" associated with all of these deducation systems.
Not yet. Six of the 35 pled guilty to things like "making false statements," etc. Most have been sentenced to probation, community service and have been ordered to return any bonuses they were paid for Criterion Referenced Competency Test scores that indicated improved student achievement. None received any jail time so far that I know of.
For those who did not plead guilty trials are set to begin later this year. Including Beverly Hall, the APS superintendent who had in past years (like so many black public officials) had vast amounts of praise heaped upon her for the most trivial of accomplishments - the equivalent of getting out of bed and going to work before noon or getting the Nobel peace prize for existing.
I have negotiated 3 contracts on behalf of Employees at
an Institution of Higher Ed.(Clerical,Custodial-Maint. and Technical Workers) I can not fathom how a union attempts to counter Management wanting a no cheating clause in the Educators contract.
Seriously, what as a negotiator for the Teachers do you counter with?
Must be I am just not wise enough to see any upside to covering for cheaters. They are the same people that will kick a kid out of School for plagarism but turn around and attempt to mass duplicate copyrighted material.
Once again the “educators” display an absence of integrity and morals. I guess in their rush to be the best, they forgot some important things. Great role-models for the students they brain-wash and oppress. Losers...they sh0ould be fired.
If they tested the Philadelphia “students” fairly, so many of them would fail that it would cause the whole school system to collapse. But more importantly it would lay bare the natural fact that most blacks can’t compete academically or intellectually. That must never happen. See my tag line.
“When a student is given a high-school diploma, that attests that he can read, write and compute at a 12th-grade level, and when he can’t do so at the eighth-grade level, that diploma is fraudulent. What makes it so tragic is that neither the student nor his parents are aware that he has a fraudulent diploma. When a black person is not admitted to college, flunks out of college, can’t pass a civil service test or doesn’t get job promotions, he is likelier to blame racial discrimination than his poor education.”
This is so true; anyone who has supervised one of these people will be shocked by their own perception of their education knowledge and the very different reality. It is far beyond high school diplomas; it has reached universities as well. The most reliable screen is something as simple as a written paragraph (about anything at all) - you’d weep when you read them.
“Once again the “educators” display an absence of integrity and morals. I guess in their rush to be the best, they forgot some important things.”
No Child Left Behind forced these POSes to pretend they’ve been teaching while taking home those huge paychecks for 180 6-hour days of work per year. Once teachers’ pay is tied to results, they either 1) teach, or 2) cheat; don’t expect them to seek employment elsewhere,
Many people don't understand that the primary purpose of the government of Atlanta is to transfer wealth from the white yuppies who for inexplicable reasons live inside the city limits to the supporters of the black democrats who run the city. Teachers and school administrators are two of the many government sinecures that accomplish this. There was a very minor scandal a few years ago about how a number of employees of either Atl or DeKalb (I forget which) school systems were putting in egregious amounts of overtime and getting paid in the $120 - $190k a year range - about twice their official salaries. Naturally they were all black.
It was just recently mentioned in the Cleveland Plain Dealer that Columbus, OH school district is fudging numbers in some way, as well.
I imagine the ones who plead guilty to “making false statements” will get their jobs back too.
I believe they never lost them.
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